


Kotoba

by shiveringshadows



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, Kissing, Language Barrier, Language study, Living abroad, M/M, language exchange, study abroad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8654689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiveringshadows/pseuds/shiveringshadows
Summary: "Friendship," and "love," in foreign tongues.





	

1.

Yuuri remembers when he first arrived in Detroit.

It was strikingly different from Japan: he couldn't have mistaken one for the other even if he hadn't been conscious of getting on the plane in Hasetsu, boarding another in Tokyo, and flying for thirteen and a half hours more. The airport was nice, he had to admit, but it was clearly not Narita. For one thing, it was huge and spacious, unlike the low-ceilinged interior of the shopping and eating areas of Narita. For another, there were more non-Japanese there than he'd ever seen in one concentrated area in his entire life: brown faces, white faces; he could hear a dialect of Chinese and what he thought must have been Spanish or a related language and, of course, English, being spoken around him; tall people, short people, children with their parents, lone adults. There were no signs in Japanese, but he'd tried to brush up on his English before he got here, so he was at least able to find a help desk on his own and read directions. But he realized how bad his accent really was when he spoke to the attendant there. She didn't quite understand him, so he had to repeat himself a few times. His ears were still popped from the landing and he was exhausted. But, fortunately, he had an email on his phone with instructions on where to go in the airport, and eventually he found his way to one of the entrances, where he was meant to meet the escort from the university he would be attending soon.

Even if it was only a fraction of the size of Tokyo, Detroit was still huge, especially compared to Hasetsu. But Yuuri saw only a small portion of it from the airport to the school.

He met his roommate, a Thai boy about his age named Phichit, when he arrived at the dorm. Although they hit it off right from the start, at first Yuuri had a hard time deciphering what he was saying. It had nothing to do with Phichit so much as the fact that Yuuri couldn't grasp the meaning of many of the words he used: most of them he'd never encountered in school, or if he had, he didn’t remember them. And when he did understand, he found it hard to communicate what he wanted to say back to him more often than not.

Yuuri kicked himself, thinking, _I should've studied harder before I got here_.

For the first week or so, he couldn’t help himself sulking, wishing he could just understand more of what was happening around him. He sounded stupid, he was sure, and Phichit and all of their neighbors in the dorm must have thought he was stupid too, or maybe just rude. And everything was so _different_ here, and the food wasn’t as good as back home, and he couldn’t sleep at night.

He video chatted with his mother on a Friday night, explaining all of this to her, running his hand back through his hair. She would’ve patted him on the head if she’d been there, he was sure, but she just smiled and reminded him that he had wanted to go to America. Not everyone got to study abroad the way he was doing, and he ought to make the most out of it while he could.

She was right: Yuuri _had_ wanted to study English and skating and get better at the both of them. As the culture shock ebbed away gradually and being out-of-Japan began to feel less wrong, and he began to get used to the food and adjust to the time change, Yuuri realized English and skating were more or less the same in at least one way: it wasn’t going to just come to him.

Phichit, as well as everyone else who lived around them—their floor was boys-only, but it was a co-ed dorm—was more patient and kinder than Yuuri could've asked. When he gathered up the courage to ask, Yuuri told Phichit he wanted help with English.

Phichit was all smiles, and "Of course," was his immediate response.

They set about practicing together nightly, and Yuuri listened to podcasts and watched videos and kept a little notebook of new words. Phichit found it useful, too: neither of them spoke this language as a mother tongue, and there were plenty of words he didn't know, either. They made flashcards and went out into the city—Detroit was pretty big, as Yuuri had noted when he first arrived—to museums and parks and cinemas and malls, surrounded by native speakers and other people who, like them, spoke English as a second—or third, or fourth—language. Yuuri couldn’t help feeling more courageous every time he spoke with an immigrant living in Detroit who could speak English.

Sometimes they traded words in their own native languages, too, just for fun: if Phichit gave Yuuri a Thai word, Yuuri would offer him its Japanese equivalent. Yuuri kept track of all of the words, making sure to write them down in Japanese, Thai, and English so he wouldn’t lose them.

Yuuri began an English journal. It never had any exquisite descriptions worthy of the English literary canon, but he kept track of the basics of his day, what he felt, how he wanted to eat his mom’s katsudon when he got home again. The entries grew in detail with his confidence.

Looking back on that journal now, it’s riddled with silly grammar mistakes and misspellings. It would be embarrassing if anyone had ever seen it, but whenever he flips through it now Yuuri remembers all of the fun he had with Phichit back then, remembers the smell of Detroit and the taste of its food and the sound of its traffic and the rhythm of American English everywhere.

 

2.

Yuuri is grateful for Viktor’s presence for all the obvious reasons, but he’s also glad he has someone he can speak English with here. It keeps him fluent.

(That’s a word he’d never thought he would use to describe himself when it came to English, but here he is.)

But whether they’re on the ice rink or eating, Viktor and Yurio speak Russian together, always.

( _Yurio:_ actually, Mari was smart to decide they ought to call him that to lessen the confusion, but Yuuri has realized he’s begun to think of that as being his real name. Viktor seems fond of it, too, and always calls him _Yurio_ when they’re all talking together, in English. But when they slip into Russian, Yuuri notices he uses it interchangeably with _Yura_.)

It’s a given that Yuuri can’t understand a word they’re saying—except in instances where some of the words sound like English words, but then, they might just be what his teachers always referred to as _false friends_ —and it gives them a sort of mysterious air. Well, maybe not mysterious, but it almost heightens their foreignness in Yuuri’s opinion: Viktor and Yurio stand out clearly as it is, but somehow their using Russian together—instead of words  Yuuri can understand—makes them seem more from another world, more separate from Yuuri, than just their faces.

Well, if Viktor didn’t seem out-of-reach, anyway, even though he’s right here.

But Viktor doesn’t exclude Yuuri from their conversations. He doesn’t use Russian unless Yurio speaks it first, and in any event, he uses English more often than not. It’s partly because he knows only a few words in Japanese, and Yurio doesn’t know any; but all three of them understand English, and Viktor isn’t in Japan for Yurio’s sake. When Yuuri thinks about that, he can’t help the pride he feels swelling in his chest.

One night—after Yurio has helped Yuuri figure out how to land Salchows, after they’ve all had dinner together, after they’ve all bathed—Yuuri finds Viktor in his room, petting his dog and talking to it affectionately. He looks relaxed in one of the yukata they have reserved for guests at Yu-topia.

“Um, Viktor,” Yuuri says, sort of embarrassed. He feels like he’s interrupting something, but Viktor looks happy to see him. Viktor would probably spring up from the tatami floor if it weren’t for Makkacchin, who is sprawled across his cross-legged lap like a huge fluffy blanket.

“Yuuri! What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says, waving his hands. “It’s just—I was wondering—well—if you’d teach me a little Russian.”

Viktor’s expression remains happy-looking, but now it has what looks like confusion mixed into it. “Teach you Russian?”

“Well, just a little—I mean, it’s not like I expect to learn it fluently, but—I just—please?” He can feel himself floundering, and his cheeks getting hot, so he waves his hands more, verging on frantic. But he catches himself, takes a deep breath. “I—I’ll teach you some Japanese, too, if you want.”

“Yuuri, I’m happy to.”

 

 

They sit down together at the low table in Viktor’s room, one of the cushions moved over so that they can sit beside each other instead of across from each other. Viktor writes the Cyrillic alphabet out, carefully with upper and lower cases, on a sheet of paper, and Yuuri is surprised that so many of them look like the letters of the English alphabet. There is a letter that looks like an English A; a B; E; M; a reversed N; and attached to the end a reversed R. Viktor explains their sounds, makes sure Yuuri understands that despite their similarities, they aren’t English letters.

“But some of them have similar pronunciations.”

Viktor moves them on from letters quickly, though, and onto a few phrases Yuuri might want to know.

“How can I say, my name is Yuuri?”

“ _Meenya zavoot Yuuri_. But first, _kak vas zavoot?_ means _what is your name?_ ” He writes it down, as though Yuuri can read it and reference it if he needs to. “So, _kak vas zavoot?_ ”

“M… _Minyaa zavu-to Yuuri_.”

Viktor laughs. “Close.”

 

 

Yuuri continues to trade words with Viktor, Russian for Japanese, Japanese for Russian. He glances at vocabulary lists he’s made for himself before he goes to bed every night, or at least most nights.

For Viktor, Japanese is necessary if he wants to do anything by himself.

(It isn’t as if Yuuri is the only person in Hasetsu who can speak English, but it makes it much easier on Viktor and the rest of the community if Viktor knows a little Japanese. And Viktor seems to like talking to Yuuri’s mother during dinner; she’s beyond amused and happy to help him practice.)

But Yuuri likes Russian, too. Even when there’s no reason for Viktor to use it every day anymore.

When he hears that Yurio has gone home before the Onsen on Ice competition is even officially decided, he worries—maybe stupidly—that Viktor will discontinue their nightly sessions.

“Viktor,” he says, during dinner the evening following Onsen on Ice—over katsudon and tea, the smell of the egg and pork rising in the air—“can… we continue the Russian lessons?”

“What are you _saying_ , Yuuri?” Viktor asks, his head tilted, chopsticks poised over his bowl. (Actually, Yuuri is always surprised at how expertly he manages to use chopsticks. He holds them the proper Japanese way, as well, with his fingers at the back ends, not the way the Americans Yuuri knows hold them, nor the way his Chinese and Korean acquaintances do. He wonders where he picked it up.)

Yuuri stiffens a little, despite Viktor’s smile: he might still say no, and he’d have every right to if he’s bored of it. He’s here to coach Yuuri, not teach him Russian, and he’s done more than he has to anyway, and—

But then Viktor continues, “Of course we can,” in his usual upbeat voice. Yuuri relaxes, heaving a sigh of relief.

 

3.

Yuuri places second in the Cup of China, after Phichit. Happy, he goes to bed early to make up for the lost sleep from last night, and Viktor comes with him.

He’s used to it by now, Viktor snuggling up with him in bed, but tonight is special, after everything that’s happened today. They trade what for Yuuri are sleepy kisses and Viktor pets his hair back over his forehead, peppering still more kisses across the skin there. The blankets in the hotel bed are warm and fluffy and Viktor’s arms around him are firm, but gentle. It isn’t like earlier today when Viktor was a dead weight on top of him and he couldn’t even get himself to nap.

Yuuri leans up, lifting his head for another. One of Viktor’s hands comes up to gently hold his chin, his thumb brushing over his cheek. Viktor says against his mouth, “ _Ya tebya lyublyu_ , Yuuri.”

Yuuri smiles into the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Kotoba = "words"; "language" (Japanese)  
> Ya tebya lyublyu = "I love you" (Russian)


End file.
